Session 14
Description Amanda's Notes Session 14 3/12/17 Mysteriously some of the archers and thugs have moved and or died. Also the order of combat was muddle and needed to be reorganized. Kazita begins by sneaking into the alley between the buildings next to her, as she is sneaking away she yells to Sir Ganlin to go help Terra across the street. Once in the alley she climbs up the building with her slippers of climbing to see the two archers up there and waits to attack only if they notice her. Inside the building Milo scurries over to behind Riot by ducking around and under legs where he sings a song of heroism (+6 temporary HP) and uses the spell Healing Wounds (+8 HP). The dire wolf Kassock, under Terra’s direction, attacks Thug 3 and bites him and then knocks him prone causing damage (7 piercing). The guard captain is refusing to drop his sword despite the fact that it is burning him and continues to cause damage, now the smell of charred smoking skin begins to smell of burnt gross bacon. He moves to attack Riot and misses his first attack, while the blade of the sword whooshes past Riot’s face he gets a faint smell of corruption (death and decay) off the blade. Unfortunately the second swing connects and Riot has to take damage and perform Will Save. (-15 slashing, failed save). The captain is badly wounded and attempts to escape, as he disengages Riot attempts an attack but misses and Fen casts a shield spell (+5 to AC) Wolf form Terra attacks the prone Thug 3 and tears at him with her teeth. (-7 piercing) After Terra the Archers take their shots, Scout 3 shoots at the Kassock and misses with both bolts. Scouts 1 and 2 don’t appear to have noticed Kazita climbing up behind them and aim at Sir Ganlin. Of the 4 bolts shot at him 3 miss and the fourth lodges itself in the gap between his breast plate but Ganlin doesn’t even notice the shot. As the Guard Captain is running for the door Fafnir steps up to engage him and switches to wielding her battle axe. She swings and connects with the captain who is starting to look pissed and worn down. (-8 to captain) Riot aggressively attacks Thug 2 and hits him square in the side of his armor over the ribs. As the blade connects it cracks the thug’s armor, at first it seems the blade may be stuck but Riot gives a sharp tug and pulls it free taking a few ribs along with it. (-14 slashing) Fen teleports back about 30 feet to the front corner of the shop and lets WingFang loose at the Captain hitting him in the jaw with a very loud clank and then hovers behind him waiting to be called back to Fen’s hand. Kazita sneaks up on the 2 Archers/Scouts and pulles Duath from her sheath and puts her to Scout 1 neck. Kazita then demands that the Scouts drop their weapons or else she will kill the man in her arms. The deception is successful and they drop their weapons. As soon as they are disarmed she slits the throat of Scout 1 and pushes his body off the roof. Milo heals Riot again (+? HP) and uses a bardic spell on the Captain. (-8 psychic, fails saving throw=disadvantage attack) The Captain takes more damage and grabs at the sides of his head still refusing to drop the sword despite the damage that has been done to him. Kassock goes in for the kill and rips the throat out of the still prone Thug 3. The man dies gurgling in his own blood while Kassock snarls and moves menacingly towards Thug 4. The Captain frantically tries to attack Fafnir with his sword tainted by corruption, however Fafnir is so full of rage and battle lust that the sword only has partial effect on her (-7 slashing (½ damage) failed will save). He tries to hit Fafnir again with the back swing but misses. Fafnir can tell the captain is almost done for but is refusing to yield or give up the sword. Terra and Kassock intimidate Thug 4 and moral in the enemies remaining outside drops (+6 attack bonus due to moral decrease) The Archer/Scout 2 picks up his crossbow and attempts to shoot at Kazita and misses then runs away to his buddy on the rooftop next door. Archer/Scout 3 shoots at Kassock and hit him with 2 bolts (-10 piercing) Fafnir rages and viciously attacks the Captain swinging her axe into his abdomen. The hit makes blood and entrails come out between the plates of his armor and blood leaks out the corner of his mouth. Fafnir licks the blood spray from her face and snarls. Fen calls Wingfang back and hits Thug 1 (-2 bludgeon) and casts a sleep spell putting Thugs 1 and 2 asleep. Riot comes up and manages to grapple the Captain and succeeds in tying him up. As he is being restrained the Captain keeps yelling “DON’T TAKE MY SWORD” over and over. Thug 4 gives up and throws down his weapons. Kazita attempts to hide from the archers/scouts on the roofs but doesn’t appear to succeed so she jumps off the side of the building back down into the alley ready to dodge any incoming attacks. With the skirmish winding down Milo walks over slowly and examines the captain’s sword (Nat 20) He discovers that the sword is not “cursed” but it does radiate Evil and due to this radiation being around the Guard Captain for so long it has infested him. However, he is not cursed or bound to the evil of the sword. This sword is the most powerful weapon any of us have ever seen and is extremely powerful. Milo attempts to question the restrained Captain M-”How have you come by this sword?” C-”Was given it and will not give it up.” M-”Who gave it to you?” C- “Not supposed to tell” Then the captain starts laughing maniacally. Outside the shop the fight is over. Terra indicates to Kassock not to kill the unarmed Thug and to move toward the shop; and he does so stopping and sitting right outside the door. Terra follows close behind she meets Sir Ganlin in the middle of the street and they both head toward the shop as well. The Archers/Scouts 1 and 3 run off across the rooftops as fast as they can and Thug 4 leaves his weapons behind as he high tails it out of there. Fafnir tired of the cryptic responses from the Captain and not wanting to touch the sword herself decides to cut off the hand clinging to the sword. (-9 ) This causes the Captain to die. As he is dying Fen (Arcana) sees a somewhat familiar sight as the Captains essence pulls away from his body a hole opens to another plane and then starts to dissipate. There are black tendrils from the sword pulling at at his essence but they begin to fade to a murky black then finally to a murky yellow. The Captain notices Fen watching and speaks to him C-”Friend, tell the barbarian ‘Thank you’ The sword was given to me by the Regent” F-”Why did you attack this Halfling?” C-”At the time I believed him to be a nuisance and responsible for the poisoning of my fellow guardsmen.” F-”Why did the Regent give you this evil sword?” C-”The Regent gave orders to keep the peace and doesn’t concern himself with anything beyond those normal orders. He gave me the sword in secret to use in that service but was sworn not to tell anyone where I had obtained it.” Fen performs a prayer to Illmater and is joined by Riot. Riot and everyone else in the shop can see and hear Fen talking but not to who. Riot having been with Fen as he was growing up has seen him converse with the dead before and understands what’s going on. Praying with Fen even though he cannot see the spirit still makes him feel better. Fen can feel the essence of the man start to slip away and go to another place/plane. Fen also gets a sense of what might be on the other side but also a sense of something just as big and mysterious coming toward the city from the South. Then the moment is broken as Terra and Kassock come in the door. Kassock immediately starts growling low in the throat at sight of the 2 sleeping Thugs and the dead Captain’s body. Terra manages to calm him but he is not content in the same area as the thugs. Riot speaks up and tells everyone to keep this sword away from Kazita and asks Fen what the spirit of the dead Captain said. Fen explains the conversation to the party and states that the Regent gave the Captain the sword. Terra calls to Sir Ganlin to enter the shop and asks him to pick up the sword. Ganlin marches in and bends to pick it up but Riot and Fen both start shouting to stop him. Ganlin stops mid bend and looks to them as they ask if he can tell what it is. G-”I think it’s a sword.” M-”Do you sense any dark energy coming from it?” G-”I sense that it is very powerful and dangerous.” Casually “That’s generally how LEGENDARY swords work. As long as you do not wield it you should be ok to handle the weapon” Fen volunteers to pick it up and there is more discussion from the party about destroying it or throwing it into a fire. However no one knows exactly how to destroy a legendary weapon and no one is comfortable burying out in the wilderness. Amidst the discussion Ganlin picks up the sword and does two quick flourishes with it, puts it to his side, and recommends that we should be going now. Milo goes to check on the still sleeping halfling, who appears to be roughed up a bit but not to damaged, and slaps him awake. He startles awake and Milo explains to him that we saw what had happened outside and barged in to save him. Not seeming impressed the halfling demands that everyone get out including the dead and sleeping thugs. Fafnir is still coming down from her rage and is panting in the corner by the dead captain covered in blood. Milo tries to call him and get an explanation as to why the guards were attacking him. Brusquely he explains that the guards had started demanding protection money starting a couple months ago. The halfling and the man next door refused to pay and therefore the guards had begun harassing them. The protection money was basically to prevent the guards from setting their shops on fire and other awful thing despite not having problems with anything prior to the demand for money. Milo attempts to talk to him more but the halfling becomes very indignant and demand that the dead body and severed parts along with the sleeping thugs be removed from his premises prior to answering any more questions. There is some small gripeing from the party about lacking gratitude and maybe that we should just leave and let him deal with the thugs when they wake up. Terra morphs back to humanoid shape and grabs one of the sleeping thugs and starts to drag out the front door into the street. While she is dragging him the thug starts to stir and Fen follows them out to ask more questions. MIlo disarms the other and Fafnir grabs him by the ankle and roughly drags him out after Terra. On the street Terra pins her thug to the ground with her boot pressed into his chest. As he slowly wakes up he grabs his weapons and tosses them out of reach. He stares up at her and states “Not fighting”. Fafnir comes out and essentially drops the other Thug on top other causing him to fully wake up. Fen walks up to them and asks “Whose orders were it to collect protection money from the shop keepers?” T-”Doing it under the order of their Captain” There is a quick side discussion about what should be done with these two thugs and not wanting them to tell the Regent about our attacking of them. Thug speaks up and states “I will go home, drink a healing potion, sleep it off, and in the morning report for duty as normal. He will not tell the Regent due to the fact that the Regent won’t look too kindly on his guardsmen extorting his citizens” Upon hearing this Fafnir pulls them up to their feet, shakes their hands, and then clasps them both on the shoulder at the same time essentially banging them together. They look at each other take off and drop their belts, then turn and run off into the night. Fafnir and all go back into the shop and the halfling is still staring irately at the dead body of the guard captain and wants it gone as well. Terra grabs it and drags it outside into the street and deposits it there, grabs his severed hand and tosses it out onto the body and shut the door. The minute that the body and sleeping thugs are out of his shop the halfling becomes much more charitable and collects ale and glasses for everyone and starts handing them out. Milo quietly asks him in halfling if he has any information about Zephra a halfling fighter that used to adventure in these parts. Halfling thinks he may recall something about a halfling by that name many years ago and to visit the MERRY HOB for more information. After this conversation Milo check out of the conversation and resumes copying the journal and starts to paraphrase rather than to copy exactly what is written. Fen speaks up and asks the Halfling if he knows anything about the carpenter next door. Halfling replies that he seemed like a good guy till his wife suddenly died about one month ago. Now he wanders around aimlessly and keeps irregular hours at his shop. Officially his wife died from falling down the stairs but unofficially these guardsmen threw her off the roof of his shop because he wouldn’t pay the protection money. Find out that the halfling’s name is ROGER and also that it is getting late and that fact that the carpenter shop is still open is unusual. Also that Scott is not proficient with potions, however he had recently been visited by Monsieur Lemons a couple times. The most recent visit was about 2 days ago and he came with a bag. This was the first time Scott Basil had perked up in a month. Roger is very grateful for our intervention and start to clean up the blood and debris from the fight. Allows us to have a short rest in his space and everyone uses the opportunity to heal. (use hit dice) Kazita finally comes inside after examining and looting the body of the archer she killed and tossed off the roof across the street. She finds 1 HEAVY CROSSBOW, 20 BOLTS, 160GP. Everyone else finds 160GP EACH, 2 HEAVY CROSSBOW, 2 MACES, LEGENDARY SWORD (currently in Ganlin's possession) Terra takes one of the maces. Fafnir asks Sir Ganlin to throw the legendary sword into a fire that could destroy it. He and Fen explain how that is not actually possible since they don’t know of any such fire that could. Milo thanks Roger for the opportunity to rest and everyone follows Sir Ganlin who is waiting outside the door. Outside a keen perception reveals that the dead thug and guard captain are still where they were deposited/fallen in the street but the body of the archer is missing. Kazita notices this. Milo is only about 20% done copying the journal. After everyone is outside Roger quickly shut and locks the door to his shop and turns off the lights. As the party progresses towards the shop next door Kazita exclaims “What the Hell is going on here and what are we doing?” The progression of events that she missed while looking for the assassin's guild is explained to her. The only one who is pissed at Kazita for not being at the inn when they went back to get her is Fafnir and the others don’t seem to care/notice she was missing. Knocking on shop next door, which produces an emotionless “Come In” from inside the shop. The door is opened to reveal what appear to be a nice cobbler's shop except that it appears life stopped happening abruptly about a month ago. As if life and business was going along as normal and then something happened to the inhabitants and everything stopped as it was at that moment in time. The only difference is the accumulation of dust and cobwebs to show that time had passed. There is a human man sitting at a small table that was probably used to do intricate embroidery. He is in his 50, white hair is balding, and slight of build and there is a pie in the middle of the table and small vial with liquid in it. He appears to be expecting someone eventually. Milo discreetly tries to inspect the vial. It seems like the same vial that Gareth had shown them back at Lemon’s shop that was suppose to be holding the basilisk venom. Fen leans over to Milo and whispers loudly “I think that is the poison.” With a voice full of apathy and lacking all emotion “Hello, I’m Scott Basil how can I help you?” Milo walks up to him and grabs the vial of liquid from the table. Riot leans over and quietly whispers to whoever is next to him “I think he was going to kill himself.” M-”Why are you doing this, this is poison?’ SB-”Hoped the Captain and his guardsmen would visit and then eat the pie. If they left a piece then I may have eaten one too.” Fen-”We should turn him into the guards.” Faf-”Well mystery solved.” SB-”The Captain and his men killed my wife by throwing her off the roof of the shop we had run together.” M-”Why?” SB-”Love is a powerful thing and can change you in unknown ways if it's taken away.” Fen takes him out to see the dead body of the guard captain. At the sight of the captains dismembered body lying dead in the street he takes a deep breath and lets the first sign of emotion show with one anguished crying sob. He looks up to Fen and the emotion of a moment ago still colors his voice slightly but is quickly fading “Thank you, I hope that you lose something important to you, because I wanted to kill him.” Fen becoming more outraged asks “Do you have any children? Because your actions have killed several of other peoples that had no connection to your wife’s death.” SB-”Have you ever been married?” Fen shakes his head and sighs. Terra beginning to lose patience with the man states “I lost my whole village when I was younger.” SB-”Have you killed anyone?” T-”This is no reason to kill everyone.” SB-”I will take that as a yes.” Milo still unable to understand asks “WHY?” Scott looks at him and shrugs showing no sympathy or remorse for anything he has done. T- “Where is Lemons?” SB-” I don’t know where he is but I had hoped to buy more poison from him if I lived through this night.” Fen-”Lemons is missing, he could have left or ran away, he may have been captured and is being punished for you attacks.” SB-”I don’t care if he is alive or dead but if he were captured he could easily direct them here and turn me in. I have written a confession and I have all the copies of the invoices of the potions I have purchased from him with the ingredients listed collected and left with the confession note.” T-”Would you have kept poisoning the guardsmen if not for our interference?” SB-”Yes.” Scott looks around taking stock of all of us lastly he comes to Fafnir and stares at her the longest making eye contact. He looks to the ground “Interesting that I am being judged by an adventuring party obviously covered in blood.” Scott continues to look at the ground and it is obvious by his demeanor that he has accepted death and will not fight us. Milo goes back into the shop and collects the confession and invoices. Looking over it reveals that it is a full confession with the names of the men he killed and when and includes his intention to continue killing. The coded invoice appears the same as the ones found at Misour Lemons home except with parts of the code described and the actual ingredient listed. The list of decoded ingredients isn’t enough for someone to follow it as a recipe to make more but it is enough to see the intention of the potions was to poison and kill the victim. Terra begins to lecture Scott about the wrongness of killing to solve your problems and how there are other avenues to gain retribution. Scott looks at her and states, “My victims don’t suffer, can the same be said for those you have killed?” As the party being to walk in the direction of the Regent’s keep Kazita leans over and whisper to Milo and Fafnir that she has someone she wants them to meet and now would be a good time for them to sneak off since the Scott Basil character is in custody and doesn’t seem to be putting up a fight. MIlo agrees to join her after a bit of persuading, Fafnir however is done running away from her past and will continue on to the keep to turn in Scott. Kazita decides to speak up and let the rest of the party know she and Milo will not be continuing on to the Regent. There is a short discussion where Kazita adamantly refuses to go to the Regent and believes that Riot, Fen, Fafnir, and Terra will be fine with her and Milo. There is more discussion and Terra decides to join Milo and Kazita also bringing Kassock with her. Kazita asks Ganlin which part of the party he would like to join. He looks back and forth between the two sides and makes his weird rusty armor sounds. There is talk of him going to the Regent with the others incase his skill are needed there but he slowly sidles up next to Kazita. Wanting to stop the discussion Kazita slowly begins backing away from the others and saying goodbye and good luck with the Regent and I hope you all don’t die there. The discussion ends and Kazita, Milo, Sir Ganlin, Terra, and Kassock take off in the opposite direction with Kazita leading them to the Merry Hob and Roondar. Fafnir, Riot, Fen, and Scott show up at the city guard post near the keep and Ramsey is there. Riot pushes Scott to the forefront and states “Here is the man responsible for killing the city guardsmen.” Ramsey goes very still and an intense desire to kill this man is seen crossing his face. However, Ramsey takes a deep breath and the moment passes tells the party to follow him and come this way. They walk through an inner courtyard and can see the dwarven embassy and the entrance to the Regent’s keep. Ramsey leads them into the keep to and inner reception chamber with a throne at the far end of the hall. Upon the throne is an older battle scarred man who seems uncomfortable sitting on the throne. He is listening to an older statesmen and looks over the party but has no further reaction. Ramsey steps forward and states “Sorry my liege for the interruption. I hired this group to find the ones responsible for the death of the guardsmen.” The Regen stops listening to the older statesman and comes over to the group and looks Scott over. Scott states that he is guilty and that he killed Ramsey’s brother despite having done nothing wrong. Scott looks to Fafnir and then back to the Regen and shrugs. The Regent asks for proof and Fen produces the proof that they had brought from his shop: the confession letter and invoices. Fen then explains about the city guard extortionists. The Regent hands the paperwork over to the older statesman and states that he will start an investigation of the guards but it's not excusable. The Regent looks to Scott for an explanation and Scott asks “Have you ever been married?’ Regent-”Yes, she was killed by orcs.” Then looks at everyone assemble and states “I want this man executed” Riot immediately refuses and will not kill an unarmed man in custody. Fafnir looks for further insight as to the Regent’s demand. She finds that the Regent is unhappy that there is no compassion in Scott and that he was being honest when he told Scott his wife was killed by orcs. Fen looks for insight as to see if the Regent will follow through with his statement to investigate the guards and finds that he meant what he said. Riot looks to the Regent and sees that he is not required to kill Scott. Fafnir then steps forward and unsheathes her battle axe. Ramsey tightens his grip on his sword but does not move. Fafnir move farther forward and gets into position. She makes eye contact with Ramsey and can see he understands that revenge is not justice. Fafnir swings and Scotts head goes rolling off along the floor and is dead instantly. Fafnir cleans her axe on the remains of Scott’s body. Ramsey is noticeably better after the deed is done. Riot to better understand the Regent and to see if he has any hidden ties to corruption and evil since he gave the guard captain the sword of corruption; performs an arcana check. Riot gets fairly close to the Regent and can’t sense anything coming from the Regent’s sword but there is a sense that corruption is starting to affect him. It is a similar feeling for Riot since it is a sense he has had before when around pirates that are just beginning the path down that life. EVERYONE GAINS 300XP FOR THE FIGHT EVERYONE GAINS 100XP FOR THE CHATTING KAZITA GAINS 75 XP FOR SESSION 13 RECAP